White Pearl (game)
Description White Pearl is a free RPG made using RPGMaker VXAce, with the Luna Engine add-on (to assist with customising the engine further), created by indie developer Harry Gill. The game's story revolves around destroying a cycle of cataclysmic events of the world, known as Dark Eras, which change/rebirth the world after each Era. The protagonist, Pearlto, is given the White Pearl to end the Priori, and stop the cycle. White Pearl features a turn-based battle system where players utilise skills with various effects with cooldowns and charge times. Players must also utilise enemy elemental weaknesses and debuffs/buffs to their advantages. White Pearl's gameplay also involves side quests and side content, and a crafting system. The game was officially released on Saturday, December 23rd 2017, after 3 years in development. Harry started developing the game when he was 14 years old. Outside of the artwork, most of the programming and the music, all of the game was developed by Harry Gill. Harry cites Undertale creator Toby Fox as his main inspiration for making games independently, even though he never wanted to make a game like Undertale, he looks up to him for inspiration. The game is for PC Windows only - first released on GameJolt, then itch.io and Steam in 2017. It was then released to rpgmaker.net at 23rd May 2018. Full development of the game began in 2015, with the basic concepts being written since October 2014. The game was announced to the public in July 2017, several months before it was released. The community of RPGMaker provided scripts and assets for him. The game had to be released free in order to respect the wishes of the providers. Reception to the game was positive, with review scores averaging around 70-80%. On Itch.io, the game achieved a score of 4.8/5.0. As of March 2019, the game's official Twitter account reported that the game exceeded 20,000 downloads on Steam. Positives of the game were the deep story that explored the characters motives and struggle, the lore was also regarded as interesting and unique. Its length and scale was impressive for a free game, with some wanting to pay for it. The way the combat and strategy evolves later in the game was also praised since players had a clear sense of progression. The music and production value was also praised. Many people liked the game because it was designed to be similar to earlier Final Fantasy titles, but White Pearl also incorporated some modern and unique elements in its game design. The game had several major patches which added new content and fixed bugs in the game for 2 years, ending at December 2019 - where only bugs are intended to be fixed from now on, in order to focus game development on the next indie title, Fabrication. The game has over 22,000 downloads on Steam as of January 2020. Design The game features a turn-based battle system that utilises systems such as cooldowns and charge times. The game also has a crafting system, where existing gear can be upgraded, or new gear made using materials dropped from enemies or bought from shops. As of patch 2.0 (April 2019), the crafting system was expanded to have the ability to reinforce and infuse shields with magical essence. Patch 2.0 also brought more items, gear, 2 new quests, and content in the game - allowing the player greater freedom of choice to choose what to equip and do in the game. The game has a large main cast, expanding over 10 main characters, and multiple guest characters. The flow of the game's characters works in a similar way to Final Fantasy IV, where party members come and go as they please - perspectives change, or either characters leave indefinitely. Players have the opportunity to undertake sidequests in the inns of all major cities, doing so will reap rewards and achievements. Aside from the field, players also traverse through dungeons, which occasionally contain puzzles. All the while, the story builds up on the characters' backstory and personality, while explaining the plight of the villains, the lore of the game and the overall plot. The game's story is split up into "Chapters" - of which there are 16: 15 main ones and 1 alternate chapter, which leads to an alternate ending. The game starts very open-ended, where the player is encouraged to explore the environment, but often transitions into linear sections of exploration in order to advance the story. The overworld is almost completely unlocked at the start of Chapter 6 (around 12 hours in), after which the game is linear again, but it opens up again for a final time in Chapter 11 before the final act in the game. The narrative is often erratic, until all of the characters have been introduced and the plot is reaching a climax, 20 hours into the game, at Chapter 11. Then it transitions into a more linear section. DLC Though he initially thought it was pointless to develop DLC of White Pearl, because new content could just be added in major patches, Harry still created a DLC for the game - titled: Chronicle Edition - which is a collection of files that the user can access in the game's Steam folder. It was made with the intention of keeping the game in the library (before free games remain with the rework of the Steam library in September 2019). It includes: - A player manual - Developer comments - A complete official guide to the game, spanning over 160+ pages long - Development screenshots and videos - Videos of unused/cut content from the game It was largely made for players who wanted to have all additional packages outside of the game, like the manual and guide, easy to access - while providing a look behind the scenes. According to Harry, the whole guide, manual and DLC was developed within 10 days, during this time he also implemented Steam Cloud integration, and learnt how DLC works on Steam. He got incredibly sick while working on it, but decided not to delay the release. The DLC released on 9th April 2018. This nauseating sickness would turn out to be a twisted intestine in his stomach, that nearly caused hernia - discovered in July 2018. Harry was then hospitalised, but recovered within two weeks - after which, he announced Fabrication and begun pre-production of the title. A new, expanded official guide is scheduled to be released in Q2 2020. Character List Currently being created. *Information is from the developer's database. Pearlto Divinia Elyswer Vael *More will be added. Development After experimenting with RPGMaker engines such as RPGMaker XP and the initial version of VX, Harry began development of White Pearl in September 2015, but it is believed that he started game development even earlier than he thought - since the game executable was created on 22nd July 2014. During this time from July 2014 to September 2015, Harry was largely concepting and throwing ideas around in the game. The initial goal was to create a lengthy RPG game with the main characters based around players he met in the MMO: Final Fantasy XIV. Despite this, Harry developed original personalities for them - as the focus was to make White Pearl more of an original game, rather than a fan based game. Inspiration was taken from the political and very world-based nature of Final Fantasy XII - and the character based nature of Final Fantasy IV. Development went along exceedingly quick by the end of 2015, as the base storyline was developed up until the party arrive at Lucae. At first, the storyline was conceived as development proceeded, and no real plans and roadmaps were made until early 2016. By February - March 2016, Harry has written the base personalities of each main character and the nature of each location - so he could have an idea of what to do, how to improve, and where to go next. By this point, the game was using an ATB battle system, and many aspects of the game were not entirely finished such as the sound design, side quests, and other content - however the game still had a playable, but bare, main storyline up until Lucae. Lots of research had to be done in order to realise a proper vision for the game. Around March - June 2016, Harry attempted to start development on a remake of White Pearl using the recent RPGMaker MV engine (released in 2015), but not everything was immediately convertible. Every single tileset had to be resized, and every map remade - because this was too much work, the remake was scrapped. In an effort to infuse the project with new life, Harry purchased the Luna Engine - which allowed him to make extensive changes to the user interface of the game. At first, very little progress was made due to the high learning curve - instead, attention was mostly centered on making custom graphics and sprites for the characters, so he also purchased Game Character Hub. Different facesets and custom sprites were made for the majority of main characters - although the decision was made to keep a few main characters' sprites and faces as stock - such as U'vharr - as the work to replace every single sprite in every single cutscene with suitable facial expressions for each line of dialog would prove too much for him. Finally finishing up adding and implementing the new sprites and facesets in the game, Harry began working with the Luna Engine by August 2016. Development began on a prequel to White Pearl, Fabrication, starting the same month to October 2016. Because it was developed with another person, many assets were made until the decision was made to scrap the game because White Pearl needed to be finished first. Harry then used the story of Fabrication (which had Aura and Crimson) merged into White Pearl to make the world have more depth and meaning - and made it a huge part of the game's lore. Although the only playable content was the introduction, the game was to include a day/night quest system, and a real time battle system. Assets such as facesets and sprites were made for all the main characters, and a few orginial locations were made. Some of these locations were then reused and modified in White Pearl - namely, the design of the Celestial Plane and Ry'ner. Using the Luna Engine, It was easy to display different graphics and move around the menus, although many revisions were made to the menu design. There was a compatibility issue with the Luna Engine and the currently existing Quest Log, so Harry had to remove the Quest Log from the game in order for the Luna Engine to function. Many adjustments and refinements were made to the game up until the end of 2016, although the base game was still only around 50% complete. By the start of January 2017, Harry had set a release window for the game: to release by the end of 2017, or early 2018. With the new skills in Photoshop, Harry began replacing every single lore book, help file, and menu design in the game with a higher quality design, and to fit within the overall presentation and colour scheme of White Pearl. Harry wrote a story plan for the final moments in White Pearl in May 2017, although development would not proceed until late June because more refinements had to be made. These changes, along with multiple cut-scene additions, dialog rewrites/refinements and new characters were made by January - June 2017. By this time, the game was around 65% complete. All of the sound of the game took a year to be edited and placed within the game, and the background music, sound effects, and background effects were mixed and looped using Audacity. Sound was being produced in concurrency with actual game development. Chapter 11-15 of the game was developed in 2 months, finished by 20th October 2017. Inspiration was mainly took from the latter part of Final Fantasy XV for the story and tone, as he was inspired from it. Harry said that the sound design of the game was "recorded and placed meticulously", and it's something that he put a lot of detail into personally. He was responsible for the implementation and looping of music, placement of sound effects, creating the animations with appropriate sound at the right frames, managing background sound etc. White Pearl features music primarily written by Masashi Hamauzu, Hitoshi Sakimoto (and his music production company, Basiscape) and Yoko Shimomura. Several other composers' music was featured in the game, with some tracks written by Nobuo Uematsu, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Junya Nakano, Naoshi Mizuta and Mitsuto Suzuki. There is 95 pieces of music in the game. White Pearl uses music from other games, and Harry wanted to make sure that they music felt like it belonged in the game - so he chose them carefully. A vocal battle theme in the game, "Beyond This World of Woe", was sung by Joelle Strother and composed by Yoko Shimomura. It's lyrics depict the story of A'thir, an important villain in the game, while also simultaneously explaining the plight of the main characters' destiny that they must follow. It also depicts the advent of the Fifth Dark Era, which A'thir will cause in the game. The game's soundtrack features mostly live orchestrations with several motifs which repeat in a lot of tracks in order to make the game feel like a whole. '''After launching the game, when looking at it retrospectively in 2020, Harry feels that White Pearl could've benefited from months of additional QA and usability testing not done by myself - but he was too scared to try and talk about the game at the time, being doubtful of his abilities and whether people would be interested. So 90% of the game testing was done by Harry himself. This is why he did not foresee some negative opinions about the game, and now learns that a different perspective on the game is very different from the developer. He aims to remedy this in his next title, Fabrication. Major bug fixes and balance changes were present in Version 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 of the game. 1.0.3 introduced a new cutscene and sequence in the introduction, as well as a new cutscene and sequence towards the final moments of Chapter 1. 1.0.4-1.0.5 saw bug fixes and a new sequence in Chapter 10, and battle performance improvement. 1.0.6 primarily had many major sound design changes, such as a few new and replaced sound effects and music. This was to reduce file size. 1.0.7 was the first major update to be announced and issued on Steam, and it included an alternate ending, lots of changes to existing items and new playable content. UI changes were also present. It is the biggest update to date in terms of file size; with the update needing around 35MB of additional space - increasing the overall file size by about 20%. 1.0.8 had two new locations: Breka and The Reaches of Kolan, new quality of life changes, changes to the main ending, and more. 1.0.9 brought only balance changes. 2.0.0 was a major final patch for White Pearl, making the game as accessible as can-be for newer players, and was developed with review feedback in mind. Despite 2.0.0 being the largest update in scale, because it didn't bring any new content - like sound or areas (1.0.7 was the only "major" addition to the game), it ended up being 3.5 MB in size - all being system and database changes. '''White Pearl Patch Release Development Struggles to Release The lack of vision in the development of White Pearl led to its long development cycle, including the need to learn two separate engines: RPGMaker VXAce, and the Luna Engine that was implemented mid-way through development, at July 2016. The ease of use led to Harry using the RPGMaker engine starting 2014, since it was easy to produce results that he wanted in his dream game. Making the game led him to seek a career in games design, so he started his studies on the subject September 2016 - but he would not learn how to use industry standard engines such as Unity or Unreal, until October 2017 - which was the initial release of White Pearl. He has since perfected his skills with the RPGMaker engine during development, and as a result, the quality of the game’s content increases the more you play. Harry cites "Lost Odyssey" and the PSP remake of "Final Fantasy IV" as his biggest inspirations of the game, both of which he played lots during his childhood. After developing and then cancelling Fabrication (in late 2016), this inspired Harry to add the themes of that game to White Pearl's plot. Infact, Fabrication was so integral to White Pearl's story, that it was revealed as a “subplot” of the game to the player around 20 hours in. The theme of “Aura” and Cassopeia’s character arc was from Fabrication, and is a very important part of White Pearl's story. The idea of a “destiny” was then conceived through this, where it would be later revealed to the player that they are acting on a set path, so that the cycle of the world's calamities can continue again, until the Light Gods win. The “Light Gods”, “Dawntreaders”, “Departis”, “Magtek’s Curse” and the “White Pearl” were the only lore concepts that are original to the game, conceived at November 2014, but they had to be rewritten numerous times due to White Pearl's shift in vision, and as ideas kept changing. According to Harry, it took about 2 whole years in order for him to make a proper plot to White Pearl, since ideas were constantly changing. Because of this, some events in the game may seem needless or not relevant - this is proven in a review, where a player felt that certain scenes just “appeared out of the blue”. Harry said that the narrative was bound to be messy, since he chose to keep all of the “old content” in, prior to formulating his plot. This is why he chose to use create several new scenes earlier in the game, such as creating a new character called Melvy to further the plot of Aura, and making A’ithr appear much earlier on, after defeating the Dark Demon in Chapter 3 (around 3 hours in). From Chapter 10 onwards is when he feels that the game truly begins, because he could utilise all his new ideas of “fate, destiny and connection”, then. When he played through that section, to the ending for the first time, he felt sad about not being able to write about the characters anymore. This led to him releasing a self-written story in April 2019, titled: “White Pearl - The Tale of Rebirth” - focusing on events that happened after the main game's ending. When he played through the alternate ending released February 2018, he cried. The other part of the game that he felt “blown away” by, was the party's entrance into Fate’s Reach, and the final confrontation with A’thir. Apparently that is his favourite part of the game, since there is an “air of finality about it”, even though it was “really just beginning”. Harry's favourite part of testing White Pearl was watching the scenes and battling. He felt like he struck a balance between fantasy, realistic feelings, and comedy in the game. He deliberately chose to write some dialogue as candid and easy to understand, as it left a deeper impact on the player, allowing more up to interpretation. Infact, player reception to the story, despite its rocky development, was overwhelmingly positive. Even if some parts were boring, it was classed as original and unique. White Pearl's “cut-off” date for development to finish was late 2017/early 2018. When the game was announced in July 2017, it had a release window of late 2017/early 2018. In order to meet these targets, Harry worked on the game non-stop in 2017. During this period is when the majority of the game's identity and content was developed. Because Harry had now a complete vision in mind, with more experience using the engine, as well as learning the Luna Engine, all he needed to do was develop the remaining 50% of the content while improving older parts. When the game released on Steam at the tail end of 2017, it did so with great surprise from players: expressing that the game “basically appeared out of nowhere” and was a “shockingly good RPGMaker game”. Harry was very nervous about releasing information on the game. He didn't talk about it much because he was scared of not being taken seriously, and didn't want to set expectations too high - which is why he never marketed the game, aside from releasing an announcement trailer and creating a Facebook page. This did change with the release of the game, which helped boost his confidence. On the night before the release date, he was extremely nervous since “RPGMaker games have a negative stigma on Steam,'' he believes. The reviews were as critical is he expected, but the positive voices were the most impactful of all. He never considered White Pearl a perfect game, but considering the circumstances of its creation, its turned out far better than he hoped. Even after releasing the game, he says he's still nervous because he thinks White Pearl set expectations too high. He has stated many times that he feel that he can never make a game like it individually by himself again, since development was so long and tiring. He wanted to make White Pearl difficult and enforce strategy, but this led to a lot of players complaining about the difficulty and become frustrated with the game. The more he played, the more he realised that White Pearl was lacking that extra depth for it to feel “fairly” difficult so, with the implementation of major patches right up until Patch 2.0 in April 2019, Harry made extensive changes to the game balance, adding new armor, weapons, skills, and crafting options. Overall, the game is easier now, but more enjoyable. Release and Reception White Pearl debuted on GameJolt at 21st October 2017, the initial response was very small - with only around 20 downloads and 1 rating. Despite this, White Pearl went through 2 versions updates to fix bugs, balance the game, and add new cutscenes to complement the story. White Pearl was then released on itch.io at 9th November 2017 as Version 1.0.3, with the response being far more popular as a forum post was put up in RPGMaker.net, advertising the game. Despite many downloads, there were no formal reviews to determine the game's quality. Finally, White Pearl saw it's emergence on Steam at the 3rd December, with the game garnering over 200 wishlisters before release at 23rd December 2017 as Version 1.0.6. At release day, the initial response was very positive with many reviews stating that it "invoked feelings of nostalgia" and that it is alike to early Final Fantasy games. Praise also went to the sound design of the game, and the music - stating that although it was not original to the game, it was used well and fitting. Overall, many people felt that the game's story and characters were it's biggest positives, along with the amount of content available in the game. Negative reviews were centred around the messy narrative at the beginning of the game, failing to capture interest at the time, and bugs. Some people said that the lore was confusing at first, but easy to understand over time and interesting. The dialogue was classed as unoriginal, but still not the worst, as the same reviewer pointed out how the story and characters also focus on humour at times to break away from the norm and give a breath of fresh air to the characters and narrative. The world of White Pearl was also classed as "coherent", and crafts a "meaningful universe". The amount of skills, items and characters available was praised, a certain reviewer stating that the each playable character had a unique playstyle - and players could mix and match what they wanted in their party. There was lots of correspondence in the community around bug reports, and suggestions, and the review score was around 75/80% out of 100 on Steam, with more positive reviews appearing during release. Other negative reviews were focused on the long opening, and how it was confusing that characters kept being swapped in the opening. Some people felt that the game lacked action, especially in the early moments - this led to them becoming bored in the game. There were also mentions of game-breaking bugs, but those have since been addressed. Since November 24th 2017, Harry ceased updates to the GameJolt page of White Pearl - due to a lack of downloads. It remains as Version 1.0.3 on that page. Within the first two weeks of the Itch release, the game reached 100 downloads. It hit 200 downloads by early January. The Steam release of White Pearl has reached 5000 downloads, and 2000 players as of January 2018. As of May 2018, Harry reported that downloads of White Pearl have reached 15000 and that milestones were met - specifically the community that had created a lot of discussion around the game, as well as a let's play series being released on YouTube, and a few compilation videos made for the game - showcasing it's animations. As part of White Pearl's first anniversary since release on GameJolt, White Pearl 2.0 was announced on 18th October 2018. The patch contains new features to the game such as an extension to the crafting and trading system, complete overhaul of items and abilities, new items and abilities, and post game content. It also contains one new scene with A'thir. The patch was developed for a month prior to it's announcement. The patch notes were released at 5th November 2018 in a WIP stage - allowing players to view changes as time progresses. Patch 2.0 was developed in unison with the planning and pre-production of the game's prequel, Fabrication, and neither slowed each other down - since Harry worked on one or the other. No other formal announcements were made until 9th April 2019 - where it was revealed that Patch 2.0 will be released in two parts: - Patch 2.0 Part I: Balance and System Changes - Patch 2.0 Part II: Compatibility Patch for Fabrication This was done to finally separate White Pearl's development from Fabrication - so it was easier to work on just one thing, as well as give new players a better experience. Patch 2.0 was developed with review feedback in mind - giving greater depth and improving quality of life to the game: one of the main features of 2.0 was the implementation of skippable cutscenes, which were released with Part I. Part II will not be released until after Fabrication. As of March 2019, the series' official Twitter reported that total downloads of White Pearl across all platforms exceeded 20,000 - and, with the average review score 75% or more, Harry considered the project a surprising success - despite explaining that most negative reviews on Steam were no longer reflective on the game because it had undergone improvement through this feedback since then. Still, the reception met expectations, but it was not expected for downloads to be so high. In April 2019, a short story for the game was finished that was focused in events that happen after the main ending. It is not to be released until Fabrication. From October-December 2019, White Pearl was updated significantly for bug fixes and all sorts of changes following the resurgence of players discussing about the game. In November 2019, a White Pearl: How it was Made series was created on his YouTube channel. In December 2019, White Pearl: Official Guide Definitive Edition was announced - an updated and expanded version of the official guide, estimated to be over 200 pages long, solely written by Harry Gill. Over the years following the initial release, White Pearl was updated constantly in response to player feedback. In these updates, bug fixes, balance changes, changes to existing systems, and new content in included. More information on patch releases is included under "Development". As of December 2019, White Pearl has more items, story (no major scenes, only additional minor ones and an alternate ending), improved UI, improved dialogue, the ability to skip cutscenes and a rebalanced equipment system. The difficulty of the game has been increased slightly since the initial release of Patch 2.0 made the game too easy; certain bosses are more challenging now, most notably the first boss, wherein the player must use everything they have in order to ensure their survival. Harry views the game as ongoing service, where it can be updated at any time as a response to player response, however he only wants to fix bugs now. The scale of these culminative changes is so great, that an overhauled official guide is scheduled to be released in Q2 2020. Unlike the version available to view using the Chronicle Edition DLC, the "Definitive Edition" is solely written by the developer for the new sections, and will contain the full database of the game, lore entries and developer comments. It is estimated to be over 200 pages. A paid release is being considered, although unlikely. As of January 2020, Harry announced that downloads of White Pearl on Steam reached 22,000+. Plot The Introduction The game opens by explaining about how Magtek's Curse upon the Light Gods limited their power, causing the Departis - where the Gods have to regularly sleep in order to restore what power they have expended. It is shown that Magtek created the Priori, the cause of the Dark Eras, as punishment against the Light Gods - who sympathised with their creation. With the threat of the Priori, Stendarr created the Dawntreaders and Divinia created the White Pearl - these will be vital tools to combat each Dark Era, with one Dawntreader being assigned to protect the Keeper of the White Pearl each Era. Stendarr also created the Weave of Fate, which is essentially a script which controls the happenings in Ottrea, as well as the Keeper's and Dawntreader's future. During the creation of the Dawntreader for the Fifth Dark Era, it is showcased, that the Dawntreader (named Redlac) was actually once human. The Dawntreader must undergo a trial in order to prove his worth to the Gods. Redlac appears shocked, confronting the Gods about how his former life will never be the same. The Gods sympathise with his plight, but saying that they had no choice to pick a human vessel - as they did not have the power to create a being to rival the Priori from scratch. Redlac accepts this, saying that he'll do it for the Keeper, and Elyswer. During the test, Redlac is faced with visions of Cassiopeia, Pearlto and Elrise. They describe their individual problems they will suffer from and ask Redlac for help and advice. Redlac is unsure how to deal with this, as he does not know who they are. Despite his lack of knowledge, should he gain some, he reaffirms that he will help them. Divinia seems pleased with the result, explaining that he will eventually meet them and gain insight - but not until the Weave of Fate dictates so. The game then switches to Kurone, who is in the middle of writing a report about Aura - before being interuppted by Walt asking her to meet him. The player can control Kurone is this section, discovering books about Magtek's Curse, Aura and the ability to read up on Kurone's report - which is currently unfinished. The First Chapter Pearlto wakes up, and remembers that he has to complete a contract today. He equips his armor, and heads downstairs. The General, who is the head of the Adventurer's Guild, reminds Pearlto of his duty to kill the Chimera at Falcon Cave. He notices that Pearlto has been performing well and staying true to his word at the Guild, so he encourages Pearlto to lay off time at the inn after the hunt is completed. Once out in Falcon Fields, Pearlto discovers the entrance to the cave and goes in. In the cave, Pearlto and Melvy find a sign which tells them the chimera has been sealed below. The pair find a lever to unblock the descent down into Beast's Rest. Just before going down, Melvy decides that she will leave Pearlto to take care of the hunt. Pearlto is shocked at her decision to leave, saying that he can't do this on his own. Melvy tells Pearlto to "man up and get on with it" and reminds him of his sensitive nature, which she believes Katkin won't be happy to hear about. Arriving at Beast's Rest, Pearlto spots Katkin there which is already in combat with the chimera. The two slay the chimera together. As Pearlto and Katkin return to Falcon Fields through the teleporter, the king of Ancarna has been struck down by a dark force while discussing the current state of the world with his advisors: Elsay, Elrise and Elyswer. Elsay and Elyswer are shocked by this, and bids Elsay go to Falcon to appeal to the king to help there's from his condition. Elyswer also gives Elsay a communication device, and Elrise follows behind.